Napkin dispensers are ubiquitous in restaurants, ice cream parlors, fast food drive-ins and coffee shops throughout the world. They generally consist of a container with a front opening through which the napkins can be removed. To keep a diminishing supply of napkins in the container positioned at the front opening, a spring biased panel with a spring disposed between the back wall of the container and the panel is generally employed. One of the problems with using a spring biasing system is the lack of uniform pressure applied to the panel throughout the range of use. When the dispenser is full, too much pressure can impede the removal of napkins from the dispenser, resulting in tearing napkins and the need to remove excess napkins to compensate for the torn ones. Also, when the dispenser is near empty, too little pressure is applied to the remaining napkins to allow just one napkin to be removed at a time, resulting in excess napkins being removed.
To alleviate this problem, and others which will become apparent from the disclosure which follows, the present invention conveniently offers a springless system with one-at-a-time dispensing, easy loading, high capacity, and reduced consumption and waste. This invention teaches a napkin dispenser with a springless means for urging napkins therein toward an opening in the front face of the dispenser. The front face has two side edges with each side edge connected a side wall of the dispenser and each side wall has at least one inclined guide that is sloped downwardly toward the front face. The means for urging napkins comprises a generally vertical plate having at least one nub on each side edge, with each nub associated with an inclined guide of one of the side walls, so that the plate urges the napkins disposed in the structure to move toward the opening in the front face through which the napkins can be withdrawn from the napkin dispenser independent of a spring.